If you are going to tell people the truth, be funny or they will kill you.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Getting High With iDosing?

Kids today, with their newfangled ways to disassociate from the reality that it's really hard to be a kid today, have turned to audio in their latest attempt to make their parents, teachers, and law enforcement say really stupid things on television.

Now, I'm on the Board of Directors of a well-known substance abuse prevention organization, so I look at news reports like this much in the way a dog might tilt his head sideways when hearing a sound that doesn't jibe with what he knows to be true.

Music and sounds have been used as emotional gateways forever. This is hardly a new realization. Anyone remember when rock and roll was going to lead to heroin addiction and pregnant Daddy's girls?

We have kids experimenting with choking each other in order to feel the rush associated with oxygen deprivation. Misuse of common household chemicals is on the rise. Herbalism has found a new audience.

So let's fan the flames of fear about iDosing instead of having a serious conversation about what all of these activities have in common: Learning to deal with life can be very difficult and troubling and will undoubtedly cause some feelings that can be uncomfortable and foreign. And that's where we're failing, on several levels.

Most adults struggle to "feel and deal" with their own lives because they lack coping mechanisms or prefer the shortcut of a pill or blinders. And these are the folks tasked with teaching our children that the world can be a big, scary place, and that it's enormously difficult to sit in your own skin while you do the best that you can.

If you want to take away hedonism and escapism, you'd better get started, because there are entire industries based on these two qualities. It might be better to spend some time helping our kids understand what it's like to feel things and assist them in developing skills they can put into practice for the rest of their lives.